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We'll be there on the towpath to support, was a bit far to bring the boat so we've taken the train in.

Very nice, I considered doing something similar. We use a brollymate in the rear (cruiser stern) but it's not very good for parasols since the tiller is set too far back so have been thinking about getting a cantilever, but they're heavy and massive...

Too expensive these days!

Stuck it straight into the gas locker (safely!) - it's an old Black Prince so has a bit of a gap. Could definitely be done better with a bit of finesse and slightly more hardware.

Sure enough, no widebeams here thankfully - and that's part of the reason it's so enjoyable. This is the upper Peak Forest, near New Mills. Unfortunately some speedy cyclists (seen a few going far too fast on electrics) but otherwise extremely peaceful and pleasant. It was indeed new, B&M sells 3x3m for ten quid but that's too big for the boat. There's quite a selection on Amazon but I sprung a couple extra for the blue to match the boat and not look like a beige garden fixture.

I know some purists may not enjoy this, but for ten quid instead of spending hundreds of pounds or more I think it does the job quite nicely. This is a 2x2m triangle sail shade, with the assistance of a very rare - priceless - towpath stick. Actually works quite well and has done wonders already in the direct sun. Bonus points, small enough to be delivered to an Amazon locker.

We currently have some bricks and paving slabs in our bow as we installed a new battery bank, much larger and heavier than the last, and took them out of the engine bay and stuck them in the bow (for now). The boat sits a little better but we'll likely hide them away somewhere else up front so they're not in the way.

There's a little corner shop just across the canal/footbridge in Hawkesbury Village which is enough to get by, not huge but plenty enough for restocking on your essentials, only about a 5 minute walk. Wouldn't necessarily want to be carless here if I had a permanent mooring but more than enough for passing through and staying a couple weeks.

Yeah, they have good food and rotating guest ales which is nice. It's very busy almost all the time it seems, especially when the sun's out. There's permanent moorings here so quite a few boaters use it I think. The 7 day mooring section has been mostly full as long as we've been here and there's a few past those as well (including us).

And to think we rushed a little bit to get through there before the closure! Hawkesbury Junction has been a treat to spend some time at though.

This is actually a perfect example of why a wiki would be a good thing. Wikis are supposed to present facts and eliminate opinion. There would be one page for each toilet type and all the *facts* about each presented - nothing preferred over the other, people can read all the pages in question and make their own decisions. The same thing happens now (I imagine) reading through the forum but the information is extremely diluted and full of snarkiness, arguing, and opinion-based language.

Having seen wikis grow in multiple online communities this isn't really the case. The wiki begins to contain a lot of solid baseline information which is useful to everyone, but discussion about specific subjects is still very much alive. In the world of boating, there is an awful lot of indisputable, factual baseline information, but also a lot of boat-specific and troubleshooting questions which can continue to spur high quality discussion. The signal-to-noise ratio is already pretty bad in many places (for example, I was reading an older thread about HVO fuel the other day which contained more posts about propellers than it did about the topic subject, which would be fine if it were in its own topic; but going off topic is extremely common here). I know I don't have many posts here but have been reading the forum extensively for some time and have used it as a knowledgebase to search for lots of things, so I believe a wiki would be amazing for organizing pertinent information in that way.

I have found a couple of these in PDF format via Google, but don't know if or where they are linked to on CRT's website. Here's an example: https://canalrivertrust.org.uk/media/original/11233-bath-to-bradford-on-avon-visitor-moorings.pdf I would be very curious if there's a proper directory of them somewhere because I do find them very useful for planning.